GC '07 Q&A: Dyack on why 'there can only be one'

Silicon Knights president thinks there will be no winner in the current console war, and eventually one platform will rule them all.

LEIPZIG, Germany--Denis Dyack believes that "commodification" will inevitably happen to video game hardware, as it has happened to every electronic item throughout history. By commodification, the Silicon Knights founder and president means that hardware brands will disappear from the industry. Eventually, he thinks there will be a standardised machine, with different manufacturers making their own models, much like DVD players, TVs, or cameras.

Dyack speaks!

Silicon Knights president talks about Too Human.

"All technology, under any circumstance, becomes commodified," he told Games Convention Developers Conference attendees at his keynote. "This occurs whether the industry itself wants it to or not."

Dyack said that even though there are three systems on the market, it's technically a monopoly. "In today's monopolistic market, the system works really well when one console dominates," he said. "But at the moment, the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii all have market share. Now we have three, and it becomes increasingly difficult to become successful. There's no clear market leader right now. No one can win the hardware wars."

The veteran went on to handicap the contestants in the three-way struggle. "Nintendo has come out of the gate much faster than everyone anticipated, but how about longevity? The 360 is doing well in America, but not so well in Japan," he summarized. "The PS3 is off to a really slow start but they have a really good brand name... So the truth is, no one knows."

Having three different systems on the market is a nightmare for developers, says Dyack. Game designers have to pick a console and hope it will be the winner, and porting a game onto different systems leads to watered-down versions. He said, "Trying to make a game on all three systems is very challenging and I don't know many, if any, people that are doing that right now."

Dyack also thinks that the advantages of ditching the current system will yield a myriad of advantages for the consumer. He said, "We're going to see better games and they're going to be cheaper."

He also added that he, for one, would welcome the end of the "religious wars" between fans of particular systems. "I'll be glad to see the end of these kinds of religious wars because people are trying to justify the money they spent on their console," he concluded.

383 Comments

  • tclvis

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 3:43 pm PT

    He's right, and it's a very astute observation. Video game consoles are in their infancy compared to other forms of technology that spawned them, and eventually platforms break down. Remember the Betamax? Sony's fighting that syndrome again, but eventually, there will be one, or they will fade out--evolve or die. Which is why I play on a PC. Those will stay around in some form. Consoles? The more features they try to incorporate to build fan loyalty and to justify their ridiculous prices (I could buy a fantastic motherboard, CPU, and GPU for that price), the more they're becoming alike and becoming more like little computer knockoffs. Play online, show your photos, watch DVDs...I can stick a gamepad on my PC and have all that and more, with cheaper, backward-compatible software (that will work on any PC) to boot. Why would I pay $500US for an Xbox, when I added a 500GB HD to my PC for $120?

    If I were a paranoid person, I'd think Microsoft got into the console wars in order to steer them in this direction--back toward their bread and butter, the PC.

    Frankly, as the rabid fanboys grow up and mom and dad aren't buying toys anymore, and they have to juggle the console versus the car/rent/mortgage/utilities/babysitter payments, play time versus a full-time job, the consoles will wane as well. Economics will eventually win out--it always does.

  • quetzalcoatl45 posted Aug 21, 2007 3:22 pm PT (does not meet display criteria. sign in to show)

    quetzalcoatl45

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 3:22 pm PT (hide)

    Screw this quack.
    The wii has not crushed the Garbage that is the other two consoles and their Mindless fanbases yet!

  • Oni

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 3:15 pm PT

    I agree with Dyack. Anything to rid the world of console fanboys is welcome.
    Consoles are an old idea anyway..... well, it seems that way from a PC gamer's point of view. I think that even hand-helds could one day be standardized. Getting rid of consoles would mean that gamers won't have to choose, because they will get everything.

  • Javier

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 3:10 pm PT

    "We're going to see better games and they're going to be cheaper." Yeah right, they are becoming cheaper already.

  • CameosisJ

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 3:08 pm PT

    i think he is true about the last sentence... Fanboys are mostly people just trying to validate and justify their purchase.

  • evil_tormentor

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 3:06 pm PT

    Consoles don't make money anyways. Its the games. Way to go Silicon Knights dude.

  • d12malu

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 3:06 pm PT

    This guy is a messiah

  • puablo posted Aug 21, 2007 2:58 pm PT (does not meet display criteria. sign in to show)

    puablo

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 2:58 pm PT (hide)

    "In the future, all restaurants are Taco Bell!"

  • thomasperry

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 2:50 pm PT

    So many people say we need more then one console or the industry will die out. Give your heads a shake. We don't need a console war to sell videogames. The console war is something we have created and completely infactuated with but we don't need it. If one more person says this can't happen because we need competition I'm gonna freak. Competition is good but not with hardware. Let's have one system and let the competition be about the games. What it should be.

  • delcidanddarth

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 2:48 pm PT

    @Ghostin-Dashell

    Your logic is also flawed. You assume that because technological innovations drive an industry, this means that industry cannot converge. What electronic industry is NOT driven by innovation? Computers, cars, televisions, mp3 players... these are all driven by technology, yet they have all converged on a handful of things or devices that is less than the number of companies making them. Imagine if for every car company, we instead had very different modes of transportation from each one? All Mr. Dyack is saying is that the big 3 are not going to dominate forever... eventually, the parts will become standardized and we'll have a lot of companies making consoles, or maybe just have them as a plug-n-play in a bay in our computers.

    What was the point of a console, anyways? The first video games may have been incredibly simple, but the technology wasn't there to hook up your computer (of course, there wasn't a PC back then) to the TV and play. You had to have a standalone device. Consoles now continue to thrive not because they are more powerful than a computer or are easier to hook up to your tv... but they are much cheaper.

    @umbrae

    It is true of computers. How many companies make computers? A lot. However, they are all computers, and software works across them all. Wouldn't it be great to have a console that you could play any 360/ps3/wii game?

  • NandoSupes

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 2:45 pm PT

    if you really believe that Sony,MS ,Nintendo are going to solidify and make one console you must extremely crazy or bold,is not going to happen,because theres always the one great denominator( money),theres always going to be competition and choice on what you can play on each console, and is a choice we the consumer make.,the big 3 ,they have their own development teams,ideas,and profits to make,with commodification there would not be no originality no competition ,that Halo 3 or MSG 4 or Zelda name will lose its prestige ,because they will not be any competition in the sense of different consoles,the recognition that it comes with saying : hey I just bought Mario Galaxy for the Wii,guess what? MSG4 came out and I bought it only for the PS3,and Halo 3 is awesome only on Xbox 360,this is what makes the industry drive ,original properties from each respective companies not commodification,and until each of this 3 gaming giants keep making their games for our benefit and their respective brand names,commodification will never happen.

  • MacRuckus

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 2:45 pm PT

    "I'll be glad to see the end of these kind of religious wars because people are trying to justify the money they spent on their console," he concluded.

    That's exactly what I said about the 360 fanboys.

  • Space-Q

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 2:42 pm PT

    well for this to happen one company would have to make their technology a standard...microsoft is probably the closest to making this happen, since 99% percent of software is microsoft based. and people learn on microsoft products.

    nintendo and sony would have to give in and just make games...maybe this could happen if nintendo and sony thought they could make more money that way but...nintendo is on a roll, I doubt they are going to stop making consoles anytime soon.

  • killab123456

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 2:38 pm PT

    They already make a "console" that different manufactures produce that play the same software games, its called the pc and the problem is, no one can produce the same results from so many different units. If game consoles were made by many different manufacturers, you would have uneven performance based on who manufactured your system even if the main parts were the same, the actual hardware would cause different results.

  • umbrae

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 2:35 pm PT

    After all these years we still have MACs and PCs, so it is not true of all electronic sectors. This guy has blown a lot of crap; I doubt he is the Video Game oracle he thinks he is.

  • the_undisturbed

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 2:28 pm PT

    i definitly dont see one console on the market in the near future

    but i do agree on his last statement about the console wars
    its just pointless
    Buy all 3 consoles
    war ended

  • The_Owner

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 2:27 pm PT

    He's a bit jaded over all the problems with Too Human...most gamers these days are perfectly willing to buy more than one system anyway. Let competition and the free market decide. The Wii is something new. As long as the gaming industry is coming out with new ways to play games and new ideas for them this standardization he speaks of will never happen.

  • DantesWell

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 2:21 pm PT

    THE WORLD ONLY NEEDS ONE BIG BOSS!!!

  • ashuncc2

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 2:20 pm PT

    I don't know if I agree with Mr. Dyack. We will have to wait and see what happens to the industry. I can't see it all having "commodification", because each manufacturer still wants their portion to be the industry leader.

  • Bug420

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 2:19 pm PT

    @Highly Toxic: There would still be competition to drive down prices even if there was only one console to play games on. It would be just like how it is with TVs. Sony is not the only one who makes TVs and they would not be the only one making hardware for the "Highlander Gamestation." Other companies would make the same system and they would compete to make the best and/or cheapest version of the same system.

  • Ghostin-Dashell

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 2:18 pm PT

    Unfortuanately his logic is flawed. Convergence happens when the technology is standardised. However the market is driven by technological innovation and the nature of innovation is for different people to find improvement in different areas. To reach this gaming utopia we would need the hardware to become a stationary rather than moving target. While there is money in the newest and shiniest this will never happen.

  • axia_777

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 2:10 pm PT

    This guy Dyack is a fool. How long have we gamers been hearing about BS FUD like this for years? Things like:

    - No one will rule this console generation. - Only one console will be the system of the future. - And the classic, PC gaming is dead. (he did not say this one, but is is brought up so often I might as well say it any ways.)

    All three are lame ideas and people like us have been hearing them for years, as in over 15+ years. None of them have ever happened. And they never will.

  • quetzilla

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 2:09 pm PT

    So, how about that Blu-Ray?

  • carrierj1

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 2:07 pm PT

    I trust this guy. His company goes from developing for the struggling GameCube and switching at just the right moment to develop for the struggling PS3. Good choices. Anyway, what he says is already happening. Look at all of the immitation NESs on the market. Any company can make a console if they want. The problem is that no one is going to buy a console if it's not made by a company known for consoles. It's a very risky business to enter and I doubt many companies want to take the chance.

  • Arc2012

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 2:06 pm PT

    I don't want just my software to be competitive. I want my hardware developers to have to be innovative as well. Wouldn't competition in both fields be better than in just one?

  • randomguy667

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 2:05 pm PT

    THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE HIGHLANDER!

  • SlikNik27

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 2:01 pm PT

    "...people are trying to justify the money they spent on their console."

    Sums up fanboyism perfectly.

  • Redgarl

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 1:57 pm PT

    We got some stupid peoples here who don`t really know that competition lies on software in the video game business. Most of the cies rely on software, anyone denying this is fairly stupid.

  • RaiKageRyu

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 1:56 pm PT

    I guess he's tired of fanboys as well

  • thatguy0130

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 1:53 pm PT

    There has always been a console war. Every system has had a run for its money in one aspect or another. Even with a clear favorite, there was always something else out there. I don't believe that there will ever be a time where it is a one console show, and if that ever were to happen somehow, I would grieve.

  • Hotwad

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 1:50 pm PT

    "I'll be glad to see the end of these kind of religious wars because people are trying to justify the money they spent on their console," he concluded. amen...however i dont think there will ever be just ONE console. nintendo is doing it own thing and ms and sony are going for next gen superiority. nintendo "inovated" and other will want to inovate later on. as long as their are differences in ideas liek this consoles can never be jsut one thing.

  • n2Deepeth

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 1:47 pm PT

    I feel sorry for Silicon Knights - his company bet on the wrong consoles to develop to gain the most profit, even though the games were awesome (Eternal Darkness, MGS, and the upcoming Too Human).

  • HOLYWOOD444

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 1:44 pm PT

    this guy bugs me for some reason (Dyack) but i'm still crossing my fingers that Too Human doesn't suck .

  • HK-47-M4

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 1:42 pm PT

    I guess I agree with him. It would be nice if this whole stupid "console war" crap would stop. There wasn't a console war last generation, so why do we have to have one now? And there will always be games that everyone wants to play that will only be on one system: Xbox 360: Halo 3/Bioshock/Mass Effect
    Wii: SSBB/Galaxies/Metroid
    PS3:MGS4/LBP/FFXIII

    So really all the systems will have great games and you will be able to justify your purchase for any system. That's why this console war is so stupid. It just causes all this tension between the fanboys of each system.

  • HighlyToxic

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 1:41 pm PT

    @dmdavenport

    It's true that companies make money off their software, but I'm sure Nintendo is raking in a nice bundle off their DS and Wii, and Sony isn't complaining about the cost of manufacturing their PS2.

  • dmdavenport

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 1:37 pm PT

    With all the problems the 360 is having, I bet MS would welcome someone else making them. Dyack is right, there is no winner in the console wars. These companies make their money off of content, not hardware.

  • HighlyToxic

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 1:33 pm PT

    A one console system would be bad for consumers. Competition drives prices down, and forces the technology to progress. If there was only one console, do you think price cuts would happen as quickly (or even at all)? Do think there would be as many options for the consumer? Of course not. The manufacturer doesn't even have to try, for what choice does the consumer have? A key example is xbox Live. When MS launched their Live service, Sony and Nintendo really had no online strategy. The success of xbox Live forced Sony and Nintendo to follow suit as consumers now demanded this feature.

    Competition isn't only good for consumers, it's essential for the industry. Without it, we wouldn't have choice, and choice is power.

  • cluelesspunk

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 1:29 pm PT

    I agree completely with Dyack. Every gamer, regardless of what system they're loyal to, wishes they could play some games that aren't on their system.

  • thomasperry

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 1:27 pm PT

    Competition is good for an idustry but when people say this can't be done because the competition between console wars will be over and the industry won't survive... that is BS. The competition will switch from the hardware to the software/developers and the games not the the systems.

  • thatguy0130

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 1:24 pm PT

    Competition is the BEST thing for an industry. Look at GameStop. They hardly have any competition and they can treat people like crap everytime you go in there with the pre-order pushers. They don't need to try hard because they bought up all their major competition. Competition in the market may be bad from a developers stand point but it is the best thing for the end user, it forces companies to really put their all into it to win your business.

  • radbytrade

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 1:24 pm PT

    Makes sense. Would be great for developers too if they only had to worry about designing games for ONE "console". Video games are pretty much the only industry still set up the way it is (with the exception perhaps of DVD vs. Blu-Ray). Think about it, it used to be VHS vs. Beta-max. Back then, everyone was all about choosing sides, now it all seems pretty foolish and I'm sure a majority of the GameSpot users now don't even know what Beta-max IS let alone the fact that VHS cassettes weren't the only option when it came to video cassettes in the mid-80's.

    That being said, the state of console wars as they stand now has been the same since Nintendo, Sega, and Atari first bumped heads. Sadly, I don't see it changing anytime soon.

  • thomasperry

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 1:23 pm PT

    Giddieon: Settle down with your posting. Also we don't need a console war to survive. Competition is always good but it would go in the way of the developer of the software not the hardware.

  • DiscGuru101

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 1:21 pm PT

    It could go on like this for a very long time unless some uber killer app changes everything. --The Mac vs. PC war rages on even though the Mac has completely given into the "way of the Pentium".

  • Giddieon

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 1:21 pm PT

    What a crock of shat... who they hell does this guy think he is... man oh man, welcome to the yawn fest of 07... Dyack is getting all biblical on our asses here mates... so be careful of the stemming pile of horse shat...

    We need competition in this business every business needs that... gamers will get it like a prison b**ch.... come off it... this guy has the makings of a dictator thank god he is only a game developer and not a statesman... that would be friggin horrible!!!

  • Giddieon

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 1:20 pm PT

    What a crock of shat... who they hell does this guy think he is... man oh man, welcome to the yawn fest of 07... Dyack is getting all biblical on our asses here mates... so be careful of the stemming pile of horse shat...

    We need competition in this business every business needs that... gamers will get it like a prison b**ch.... come off it... this guy has the makings of a dictator thank god he is only a game developer and not a statesman... that would be friggin horrible!!!

  • thomasperry

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 1:19 pm PT

    Poeple, the industry doesn't need a console war to survive. Wake up.

  • Faelas

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 1:18 pm PT

    All those who say the PS3 is hard to dev for must have been in coma or something. All those problems were solved when Sony gave all developers the developer tools a good while back.

  • Giddieon

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 1:16 pm PT

    What a crock of shat... who they hell does this guy think he is... man oh man, welcome to the yawn fest of 07... Dyack is getting all biblical on our asses here mates... so be careful of the stemming pile of horse shat...

    We need competition in this business every business needs that... gamers will get it like a prison b**ch.... come off it... this guy has the makings of a dictator thank god he is only a game developer and not a statesman... that would be friggin horrible!!!

  • XwarzoneX

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 1:12 pm PT

    First, the standard wars for DVDs (+R/-R,Blue-Ray/HD-DVD), TVs (PAL, NTSC, SECAM, the 100000 variants of HDTV) and video cameras haven't settled yet and likely won't settle for a long time

    Second, yeah there's standards, but the brands are every bit as powerful as they are in gaming - maybe moreso, because there's so many more. Sure you can buy a cheap knockoff flatscreen with crappy speakers and play DVDs with a PS2, but it won't give the results of a dedicated system.

    Interestingly, does this mean he is claiming that the ultimate platform would be the PC? That's the one platform with one glue keeping it together (Windows, in this case) but that anyone - even the end-user - can assemble.

    Oh, wait. Developers ran from the PC precisely because it's not a closed platform with strictly enforced standards.

    And as for the "religious wars" ending, that'll happen when sports supporters of rival team will stop fighting and/or you can punch idiots from across the Internet.

    Dyack is talking out of an orifice, but it's not the mouth.

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